14 Now YHWH had told Abram, after Lot detached himself from him,
וַֽי׳הוָ֞ה אָמַ֣ר אֶל־אַבְרָ֗ם אַחֲרֵי֙ הִפָּֽרֶד־ל֣וֹט מֵֽעִמּ֔וֹ
We have just read a parenthesis explaining that the people of Sodom, near whom Lot has moved, are “sinners to YHWH.” It certainly must have taken Lot a while to get there and settle down (which he did as long ago as v. 12). Now we have a “meanwhile, back at the ranch” moment returning us to the thread of the main story. That’s the story that started at the beginning of ch. 12, when YHWH told Abram to “Get going!”
Biblical Hebrew has a technical way to get more tenses than just two out of the two forms of the verb that tell you when something happens. In this case, instead of “YHWH told Abram” (English past tense) we have a pluperfect: “YHWH had told Abram.” ⇥ See Lesson 5 of my Hebrew course for an introductory discussion of this. ⇤
Robert Alter, one of the very few translators who writes “had” here, explains it clearly:
Although all previous translations1 treat this as a simple past, the word order—subject before verb—and the use of the suffix conjugation instead of the prefix conjugation that is ordinarily employed for past actions indicate a pluperfect.
His explanation of why this tense is used is not as clear:
